ARTICLES ABOUT FLOOD INSURANCE BY DATE - PAGE 4

Coverage takes about a month to kick in. Meanwhile, hurricane season begins June 1. With the cost of flood insurance rising, the question of how much and what kind to buy becomes a thornier decision -- especially if you live in an area like Hampton Roads that is surrounded by water. It's flood insurance decision time for homeowners across the region as hurricane season is only a month away. When people buy private insurance, it rarely covers damage from surface water and flooding.

The county's application for federal funds to buy nine flood-prone properties might rest on the relatively small cost of a 2006 storm. The first time Laura Graber's house flooded, in 1999, she escaped by walking out of chest-high water. The second time, in 2006, the Smithfield resident had to be rescued by boat. "Am I going to get carried out next time?" Graber said. She's one of several Isle of Wight residents who hope the county receives federal funding to take their flood-prone properties off their hands.

Government flood funds helped all Response to "Let homeowners pay," Jan. 24 by O. Harold Jackson: I need to understand how a government grant is any different than Jackson's purchase of government-sponsored and funded flood insurance. I am a resident of Poquoson and suffered through Hurricane Isabel and its aftermath. My family's home was severely damaged, and we, too, enjoyed the government's answer to proper housing for a family of three; my neighbors had a family of six in one trailer.

Think you're fully covered if your home is damaged by a hurricane? Unless you've read the insurance policy, you might be wrong. Hurricane or wind deductibles caught many by surprise after Hurricane Isabel in 2003. These typically are 1 to 5 percent of the policy limit, according to Virginia insurance regulators. In the past year, several companies raised their deductibles to 5 percent from 2 percent in high-risk coastal areas. If a home is insured for $100,000 and has $8,000 in wind damage, and the deductible is 5 percent, the policyholder would pay $5,000 with the insurance company covering the remaining $3,000.

If you can hear, see or smell water, you probably need protection, FEMA says. The bad news? If you buy flood insurance today and a hurricane hits in the next month, you'd be out of luck if a storm surge -- think Hurricane Isabel -- brought water into your home and left everything a sopping mess. The good news? It's never a bad idea to consider flood insurance, especially in the Hampton Roads area -- even if you're not in a floodplain. So says the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which put out a reminder this week in the wake of Tropical Storm Alberto, whose remnants last week dropped heavy rain and flooded some areas of Hampton Roads.

Are you ready? With hurricane season here, some things bear repeating Ready or not, the hurricane season has arrived. It started, officially, on Thursday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting a "very active" 2006 season. Are you ready? The lesson from Hurricanes Katrina and Isabel is this: You can depend on ... you. Your city or county government may or may not be ready, willing and able to provide ice, water, food, shelter or any of the other necessities of people hit by hurricanes.

More than two years after Isabel hit Virginia, some critics say FEMA's program could be beyond reform. The nation's flood insurance program is broken, mired in debt it cannot repay and unable to handle all flood claims efficiently, a key Senate panel said Wednesday in urging an overhaul. The scathing criticism from the Senate Banking Committee occurs more than two years after Hurricane Isabel struck Virginia and other Mid-Atlantic states, exposing serious flaws in how the federally managed program is administered.

Isle of Wight County is seeking input for its emergency plan. Isle of Wight County has made headway in emergency preparation since Hurricane Isabel in 2003. But there's still a lot to do, county Emergency Management Director Richard Childress told the Board of Supervisors on Thursday. His presentation came just two weeks after a handful of citizens spoke up at a Board of Supervisors meeting with concerns that the county is not prepared. Two new efforts -- a regional emergency plan and surge flooding maps -- will make the county more prepared in case of a natural disaster, he said.

Two years after the hurricane, the federal coverage program still needs better oversight, a new report says. The federal government does a poor job in overseeing the National Flood Insurance Program and has yet to fully enact the reforms mandated by Congress last year, the Government Accountability Office reported Tuesday. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found the federal agency responsible for the insurance program can't determine the general accuracy of insurance claims because it did not use a statistically valid method for sampling them.

The county's ongoing preparation for high tides and driving rain will bring a 5 percent reduction on bills through a federal program. York homeowners will start getting a discount on flood insurance soon because county workers diligently clean storm drains and tracks that channel water out of neighborhoods. Bills should take a 5 percent dip because county officials enrolled York in a Federal Emergency Management Agency program that gives money back to cities and counties that protect themselves from floods.